Marisacat

O Tannenbaum 23 December 2008

People flee from the burning Christmas Tree in Athens’ central Syntagma Square after it was set on fire by demonstrators during a night of riots in Athens on December 08, 2008. Fury at the fatal police shooting of a schoolboy, 15-year-old Alexis Grigoropoulos, erupted in a third day of rioting across Greece today, with youths looting stores, attacking hotels and clashing with the security forces. [AFP PHOTO / Aris Messinis]

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as for the “lox and bagels” thing … I was trying to pick a Ob = Jeebus joke, and I thought that fit better with the current theme than saying that I heard he was gonna walk on top of the reflecting pond to greet the crowd, so I went for loaves and fishes.

I hear there is a tight-knit jewish community here in Milwaukee (there were stories about them holding a memorial service for the Jewish couple killed in Mumbai a couple of weeks ago), so there must be a good deli or two to get lox. I wouldn’t know if it was any good, because I actually can’t stand lox. Smoked salmon is too fishy for me. If I’m going to have salmon, it’s going to be a salmon steak grilled with some rosemary.

I was always happy to just enjoy my Tal’s bagel with a smear when I lived in NYC. No lox for me.

I only like smoked white fish…the texture of the salmon [even unsmoked] I find kind of annoying…

So I’m off for some ‘jesusiness’ in Tucson for a few days… After I spoke with my folks and sister’s family tonight, they launched into some carols without putting down the phone [my mom of course at the organ]… ugh. Couldn’t tell if it was intentional or just that my 5 year old nephew didn’t understand that to hang up a cell phone he needed to close it – either way, I hung up after a syrupy verse of ‘Oh little town of Bethlehem’… hmm, nicotine withdrawal mixed with my least favorite cycle of Christian music – must be why I hate the holidays.

And the Mattes link from the last thread that was briefly discussed last thread – written by a Jew for the LA Times kind of poking fun at the whole ‘the Jews control Hollywood’ shtick.

As far as I can recall mockery of ‘identity sensitivities’, particularly religious ones, have always been stock and trade among the denizens here – one of the reasons I like this blog above all others.

The governor’s frustration follows reports last week that Kevin Sheekey, a top deputy for Mr. Bloomberg who has been advising Ms. Kennedy, had called a labor leader and told him that Ms. Kennedy was going to be senator, “so get on board now,” and that a member of Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s staff was helping Ms. Kennedy reach out to unions.

2. as for the “lox and bagels” thing … I was trying to pick a Ob = Jeebus joke

Well, it fell flat.

Madman:

I wouldn’t know if it was any good, because I actually can’t stand lox. Smoked salmon is too fishy for me.

lucid:

I only like smoked white fish…the texture of the salmon [even unsmoked] I find kind of annoying…

Who cares? The world doesn’t revolve around your taste buds.

As far as I can recall mockery of ‘identity sensitivities’, particularly religious ones, have always been stock and trade among the denizens here – one of the reasons I like this blog above all others.

And fun is fun – within reason. But the recent festival of Jew-bashing was too much for me to tolerate.

You know, Newsweek named Rick Warren one of the fifteen people who make America great. And even The Nation, which I’ve written for, you know, the venerable left-wing magazine, in 2005 published a piece calling Rick Warren America’s pastor.[They are next to useless, all but false flag. From embracing Webb and Biden to Warren.]
…

And he’s been pumped up by a small group of Democratic consultants, who urged Barack Obama first to go to his church and speak with him and then to participate in a debate this August that was broadcast by CNN, the Saddleback Forum, where Rick Warren essentially got to interview both candidates sequentially, John McCain and Barack Obama, on the issues and serve as the national minister. The debate went really badly for Obama, because Rick Warren asked him a trick question about abortion: When does a baby get human rights? Barack Obama couldn’t answer it. Soon after, he was attacked by right-wing radio hosts for his answer, because he said, you know, “This question is above my pay grade.” And Rick Warren even went on a conservative radio show and, you know, chuckled about Obama’s response and kind of lightly mocked him. […]

Lie down, pick up fleas. There’s Warren establishing a hostage game. In a heart beat I’ll bad mouth you (and now I am even a greater! famouser! pastor than I was a couple weeks ago).

Good going.

And Good Luck Melissa Etheridge:

So, Rick Warren openly backed Proposition 8 in California last November—this November, and he did so in the terms that you heard him speaking to Steven Waldman, essentially saying that two percent of our population, the homosexual population, was trying to dictate to the rest us, which is a really demagogic thing to say. He told that to his congregation. And he’s backed every anti-gay proposition that’s come down the pike in California in the last ten years, including Proposition 22, which laid the groundwork for Proposition 8. He joined up with James Dobson and Charles Colson and Tony Perkins and these people to do this.

And the Mormons and the Catholics… and the scabrous black ministers in CA who I am sure got money from the Catholics and the Mormons.

AND BONO and his ONE campaign. Which Obster too is all mixed up in, wore the white rubber bracelet for months… met with Bono privately in DC, in Feb of 2006 iirc. Bono is too entwined with the government, not independent at all. Xtian.

MAX BLUMENTHAL: Right. And this [his blast email near the end of GE ’04] is before Rick Warren became a member of the ONE Campaign, before, you know, the media had began puffing him, and before people—Democratic consultants like Mara Vanderslice, who ran a sort of Christian front group for Obama called Matthew 25, and self-proclaimed progressive evangelicals in the media, like Amy Sullivan, began presenting him as one of the new evangelicals who was going to take us beyond the Christian right. But the evidence was there that Rick Warren had sort of insidiously backed George W. Bush by saying that pastors had to vote and urge their congregations to vote on issues like abortion and homosexuality. If you vote on those issues and you say that those issues are non-negotiable, then of course you’re going to vote for George W. Bush, and of course you’re going to back the Republicans for Congress.

So fuckign screwed. Because obster is weak. The party is corrupt and our systems are utterly corrupted. IMO.

ANN CURRY: —that people are born to be gay, would you change your position?

REV. RICK WARREN: No. And the reason why is because we all have biological predispositions. I’m naturally inclined to have sex with every beautiful woman I see. But that doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Rick Warren. Max Blumenthal, final thoughts?

MAX BLUMENTHAL: Well, that’s a bizarre remark I haven’t heard. And, you know, I like to get to know women first, and I think, you know, most people do.

Rick Warren has a doctrine of women’s submission, which he preaches to his church, and he tells the female members of his church that they have to support their husbands’ decisions, even if they make bad financial decisions, because women have to submit in a biblical manner to their husbands. So this goes way beyond being anti-gay. He’s, you know, patriarchal. …..snip….

11- Anything from Katz’s deli or the various little shops that still hang on in the LES – pickled anything [particularly fish]. A lot I can’t eat. I was at a Hanukkah party on Sunday and, alas, couldn’t eat the latkes because of the flour in them [though I love them], but I did have an awesome salmon tartare [despite my general dislike of salmon]. I’m good with kosher wine. I can’t eat bagels, but love them… need I go on? Just really don’t like lox. If the salmon is minced like in a tartare, I don’t notice the texture, but I just don’t like the fish in general beyond something like that [I guess sushi is ok too because you don’t get the sense of the texture].

10- So this goes way beyond being anti-gay. He’s, you know, patriarchal.

Ah, I have found it – the quote from The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas:

My father was a quiet man who took things quietly, though he felt them deeply. The first terrible morning of the San Francisco fire I woke him and told him, the city has been rocked by an earthquake and is now on fire. That will give us a black eye in the East, he replied turning and going to sleep again. I remember that once when a brother and his comrade had gone horse-back riding, one of the horses returned riderless to the hotel, the mother of the other boy began to make a terrible scene. Be calm madam, said my father, perhaps it is my son who has been killed.

Hi BHHM! Add several shakes of anti-Semitism to your regular spew of loopy logorrhea and your posts become a Superfund site. But of course you cultivate that style, like so many ‘net schlobs do, to cover their lack of intellect.

Very silly indeed.

And did you ever tell us what your Daily Kos user ID was? Or IS? Oh no, I don’t think you did. LOL! Mr. Agitprop.

Dec. 24 (Bloomberg) — Missouri’s plan to spend $750 million in federal money on highways and nothing on mass transit in St. Louis doesn’t square with President-elect Barack Obama’s vision for a revolutionary re-engineering of the nation’s infrastructure.

Utah would pour 87 percent of the funds it may receive in a new economic stimulus bill into new road capacity. Arizona would spend $869 million of its $1.2 billion wish list on highways.

While many states are keeping their project lists secret, plans that have surfaced show why environmentalists and some development experts say much of the stimulus spending may promote urban sprawl while scrimping on more green-friendly rail and mass transit. …snip…

I am nto up for this today, at all. Too under the weather… but people can thrash it out at will. Or not.

But I will point out (as has been pointed out previously) that the ”Hollywood article” ws posted by mattes and was indeed written by a Jew. Unless a “stein” can change its stripes (off hand I don’t know anything about the author). mattes has already defended herself once against criticism (I don’t remember what thread anymore, recently)…

I read lots more inflammatory (to some eyes), blunt and informative material in the Israeli press than I ever read here (in the US), we are so circumscribed. Thank god for Ma’ariv and Ha’aretz, and even Ynet News which is conservative and sometimes reactionary, it strikes me as more open and accessible on issues than the US press and the weight of the AIPAC heavy thumb. Even the Jpost.

I don’t care who likes it or dislikes it, but i am not shutting down posts and comments. And I am not exhorting myself to “like” any group, esp any group taking political action that I disagree with, in principle as well as tactics adopted… Whether Mormons or Catholics or Black Ministers or Evanjellicals or Jewish groups or who the hell ever. I’ve been called ”homophobe”.. ”racist”… ”lesbian” (what a contortion) and a few other things online…. It started with Meteor Blades, even before I opposed (such as any position I might take would matter at all) Obama… and the yapping cadres at PFF set after me over Ob- or whatever…oh I was so scared!! Poor lousy Peeder who then erased all the words… words are so … just words.

Madman was called out as racist for calling MB a “cigar store Indian”. Boober the party apparatchik morphed the actual words to saying Madman used “nigger”… which in fact he did not… well Madman is part Lakota, thru the maternal line. I LONG ago suspected that MB had a past life as an informant. ”At too many hot spots across too many years”, was how i put it… and too practised at shutting down argument.

They just seek to shut down criticism. Which can be harsh and unfair. And wrong.

Unfortunately imo “American” is the worst damned religion. The capital “R” religious always choose each other and their insular cut off from humanity cult rituals over every one else on earth

No but you sought to exhort me to “like” the Jews. Or to simper that I so like the Jews. Hell, they are PEOPLE. Bad good and in between. “The Jewish Nation” is our war partner. I won’t waste time being kind.

How manipulable do you think I am?… and you sought to TRY (foolish endeavor) to make me feel that someone’s words here reflect badly on me or this blog (as if this blog matters, HA!).

Don’t be silly Heather.

But if you think that challenging people to name their preferred “jew food” (and being nasty when they state what do or do not like) or challenging people for their monikers at Dkos or elsewhere (I never used sock puppets but I sure know plenty who did and DO still)… is somehow cute, it’s not. But if that is YOUR level, have at it.

Now i have said all I intend to say on accusations of Jewish hatred or racism or whatever schtick is parading.

A clown in full costume was left stunned after being strip-searched by Birmingham airport security as he tried to board a plane.

Children’s entertainer David Vaughan, 60, was dressed as PC Konk, complete with huge floppy shoes, a policeman’s helmet and face paint, when he was taken aside by security staff at Birmingham airport.

Mr Vaughan had been booked by Variety Club Midlands to entertain 100 disadvantaged children on a plane as it circled the region on a one-hour Christmas charity flight. But a piece of metal on his costume set off the security alarm, prompting security guards to confiscate his plastic handcuffs and order him to strip down to his shorts and T-shirt.

Staff also demanded he put the liquid for his plastic bubble-blowing saxophone into a clear sealed plastic bag.

“I’d made sure I’d bought plastic handcuffs and a plastic whistle but I hadn’t realised that the costume had a metal band – I thought it was plastic,” said Mr Vaughan, from Shard End, Birmingham.

“They took me to the customs office, I took off the costume and they put it through the X-ray machine.

“That was fine and I put it back on. Then they confiscated my handcuffs, which were plastic.”

Mr Vaughan was finally allowed to board the Thomas Cook-sponsored plane, which took off from Birmingham and returned an hour later after the incident last Tuesday.

I’d love to know the backstory on this one, because one factor — the father’s $28,500 contribution to the RNC — seemed both like a)not enough money to buy a pardon and b)to create an appearance of conflict that made it a heavier lift, not a lighter one.

Wonder if they sent the family a blushing smiley when they conveyed the news?

The Federal Reserve said today that it has granted GMAC’s request to become a bank holding company, giving it access to new sources of funding, including a potential infusion of taxpayer funds from the Treasury Department and a variety of lending programs operated by the Fed itself. The troubled auto lender needs the money to survive large, continuing losses on its portfolios of car and home mortgage loans.

The company is the major source of funding for General Motors dealers and provides loans for many GM customers, making its fate a crucial factor in the survival of GM. The Fed’s decision was a welcome holiday present for GMAC’s major investors, GM and Cerberus Capital Management, which bought a 51 percent stake in GMAC in 2006.

I’m trying to dry out my house – temps rose enough to bring actual rain, as well as melt snow here – enough to commence the annual Making of the Meringues.

The Federal Reserve said today that it has granted GMAC’s request to become a bank holding company, giving it access to new sources of funding, including a potential infusion of taxpayer funds from the Treasury Department and …

The Anti-Defamation League has asked the U.S. attorney general to ensure that Israel’s Law of Return is not used to deny bail to Jewish defendants.

In a letter Wednesday to Michael Mukasey, an Orthodox Jew, ADL National Director Abraham Foxman took note of a federal magistrate judge’s recent denial of bail to the former manager of the Agriprocessors kosher meatpacking plant.

The judge, Jon Scoles, ruled that Rubashkin posed a risk of flight and declined to release him on bail, pointing to evidence that he had a travel bag with cash and travel documents on hand at the time of his arrest. He also noted that two others accused of crimes connected to their work at Agriprocessors are believed to have fled to Israel.

The IMF’s top economist, Olivier Blanchard, maintained that governments around the world should boost domestic demand in order to avoid another Great Depression similar to the global downturn that shook the world in the 1930’s.

“Consumer and business confidence indexes have never fallen so far since they began. The coming months will be very bad,” Blanchard said in an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde.

“It is imperative to stifle this loss of confidence, to restart household consumption, if we want to prevent this recession developing into a Great Depression,” he added.

New data out in France offered some relief, showing that household consumption of manufactured goods – a key growth indicator – rallied 0.3 percent last month after slumping in October.

“It is a first small Christmas present for the French economy,” said Alexander Law, an economist at the Xerfi research centre in Paris.

The European Central Bank also issued some heartening pre-Christmas data showing that the eurozone’s current account deficit had narrowed to 6.4 billion euros (9 billion dollars) in October from 8.8 billion euros in September.

But elsewhere in Europe the news was more downbeat. Retail sales in Italy went down 0.3 percent in October, Denmark’s economy contracted 0.4 percent in the third quarter and the Dutch economy had zero growth, official data showed.

Finland’s unemployment rate rose to 6.0 percent in November from 5.8 percent in October and the Polish central bank cut its key lending rate by 75 basis points to 5.00 percent in a bid to fend off a recession.

In Ukraine, thousands of people took to the streets for a union-led protest to demand higher wages and more social protection in the former Soviet republic, which has been hit hard by the global economic crisis.

News of weakening growth also sent the British pound sliding under 1.0550 euros, nearing a record low of 1.0463 reached last week, as dealers bet on more interest rate cuts from the Bank of England and forecast parity with the euro.

The dollar exchange rate also drifted lower against the euro and the yen.

Thank-you for not banning me for being a Obamabot. I promise to do penance if in the next 6 months he does not make significant changes to our foreign affairs. I will hide behind a rock. Promise.

Also, I am sorry, but in good conscience, I can’t say I “like” any group of people. I can not say I like blacks…or I like Jews, or I like the english…or the french…or hungarians
…or what not. I try my best to judge people as individuals. Doesn’t matter to me what ethnic group or religious group or secret society….or nationality they are. Good people get caught up in sadistic ideologies. Even Nazis and Zionists. And bad people have taken advantage of humanitarian causes. The people I tend to “like” have what I consider good hearts and the ability to not take themselves too seriously. Oh, and, elitism and the pursue of power/money as a goal is a real turnoff for me. Few people seem to be able to retain power, and still be a compassionate being, IMO. A dilemma.

I know you have not asked for an explanation, no problem, but sure hope, I’ve explain myself sufficiently this time.

Oh, and I also find “interesting” that the only pundit on TV that can take AIPAC to task is Jon Stewart. The only. And of course we all know what has happened to people like Finkelstein.

But, I’ll understand if, if…..well.

Meanwhile:

Brown leans on Israel in attempt to foster peace

Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, appears to be paving the way for a fresh, Anglo-American peace initiative in the Middle East in the new year.

Diplomats in London said there were clear signs that Mr Brown was preparing the ground for Barack Obama to spearhead a bid for an Israeli-Palestinian accord soon after his inauguration as US president on Jan 20.

In recent weeks, Mr Brown has markedly toughened his public pronouncements over continued Israeli expansion in the occupied West Bank and called for an end to the economic blockade of Gaza.

He has also met this month both Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, and Salam Fayyad, his Palestinian equivalent, while, simultaneously, instituting a string of small but significant measures to increase pressure on Israel.

According to a “well-informed Washington source” quoted by The Times newspaper, Mr Brown’s efforts are being synchronised with Mr Obama’s advisers.

“There are limits, of course, to what the prime minister can achieve, but it appears he is sending a message to Israel that there could be real consequences unless it compromises. Even so, the big moves will have to come from Mr Obama when he takes office.”

Mr Netanyahu’s Likud Party is already opposed to a Palestinian state, and there have been worrying signs recently of a grass-roots movement to push the party even further to the right.

For his part, Mr Brown has made clear his commitment to a two-state solution and has also very publicly stepped up the pressure on Israel to stop its expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank.
snip
This week, for instance, British customs officials began random searches of Israeli goods coming into the country to ensure that they actually came from inside Israel, which are tariff free within the EU, and not from settlements, which are not.

I believe the Germans and French have recently & publicly come out against the settlements as well. I am hopeful this time there will be real pressure on Israel, ….for the first time to move to a two-state solution. The fear is of course that Israel will scramble the playing field by taking a shot at Iran in the middle of Obama transition.

The Madoff scandal has cut the $$$spigot to the settlements, and that’s not a bad thing.

The Board of Supervisors’ meetings also have undergone a number of changes since the Maricopa Citizens group began attending.

The supervisors cut the amount of time each member of the public is allowed to speak during the public comment portions of the public meetings. The board permits each speaker two minutes. Previously, the board gave every speaker three minutes.

Generally, eight or nine sheriff’s office deputies and county security officers station themselves around the perimeter of the small auditorium where the board holds its meetings. Also, as many as 20 deputies and officers are stationed out-of-view in hallways around the edges of the auditorium and another 20 or so patrol a plaza outside the auditorium’s front doors.

In the pre-Maricopa Citizens era, usually a few deputies worked the metal detectors in the auditorium’s lobby and a few others remained inside the auditorium.

Most noticeably, deputies and security officers restrict movement within the auditorium, directing spectators to take seats and remain in their seats while the meetings are in session.

Previously, Board of Supervisors meetings were conducted like virtually every other public meeting, at which spectators routinely stand in the aisles and occasionally walk about to confer with other spectators.

In that regard, crowds at most public meetings more closely resemble spectators at a baseball game rather than audience members at a movie theater.

And, of course, deputies and security agents at the Board of Supervisors meetings have begun to arrest spectators. That development came Wednesday.

During the meeting, Board of Supervisors chairman Andy Kunasek warned spectators that they were being disruptive by applauding speakers, but deputies neither dismissed nor arrested spectators who applauded an animal advocate or a public transportation advocate who sang a birthday song for Kunasek.

The scene was different when about 15 spectators stood and clapped for 20 seconds after a Maricopa Citizens group member spoke critically of Arpaio during her turn at the lectern.

Odhner is a member of the Maricopa Citizens. Nelson, Sandschafer and Theilen are members of ACORN. ACORN has been closely aligned with the Maricopa Citizens during the anti-Arpaio campaign.

Nelson is black. The other three are white. Early Friday morning, three deputies appeared at Terán’s home to give her a disorderly conduct citation linked to her role at Wednesday’s meeting. Terán is Hispanic.

Deputies made the arrests in a clear attempt to intimidate people associated with Maricopa Citizens, said Carlos Calindo, who attended the meeting.

“It is incredible the way they behaved,” said Calindo, who is not a member of the citizens organization. “You come in there and the atmosphere is incredibly oppressive. They yell at you. They scold you. They try to intimidate you. It is improper.”

The lone matter at issue for deputies is people’s behavior in the meetings, Arpaio said.

“They’re not trying to intimidate anybody. They’re just responding to violations of the law, which is disorderly conduct and trespassing,” he said.

“I don’t know if Mary Rose (Wilcox) has a little problem with this, but she has to understand that we enforce the laws of the state of Arizona. We don’t enforce her laws,” Arpaio said.

The Maricopa Citizens are more invigorated than ever, said Danny Ortega, an attorney for the organization.

“If what Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the Board of Supervisors are trying to do is intimidate citizens who petition the government, they are absolutely wrong. They will not intimidate us,” he said.

“What occurred Wednesday is nothing short of atrocious, over the top, an abuse of power, an abuse of discretion. More than anything else, it was Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his deputies as well as the Board of Supervisors who trampled, absolutely trampled, on the Constitution of this country,” he said.

When a Woman Isn’t in the Mood: Part I
Dennis Prager
Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Given our preoccupation with politics and economics, it is easy to forget that for most of us micro issues still play a greater role in our lives. So here are some thoughts that, as heretical as they might sound, have been found extremely helpful, sometimes even marriage-saving, from listeners to my radio show, which features a “male-female hour” every week.

The subject is one of the most common problems that besets marriages: the wife who is “not in the mood” and the consequently frustrated and hurt husband.

There are marriages with the opposite problem — a wife who is frustrated and hurt because her husband is rarely in the mood. But, as important and as destructive as that problem is, it has different causes and different solutions, and is therefore not addressed here. What is addressed is the far more common problem of “He wants, she doesn’t want.”

It is an axiom of contemporary marital life that if a wife is not in the mood, she need not have sex with her husband. Here are some arguments why a woman who loves her husband might want to rethink this axiom.

December 23, 2008 – The Center for Constitutional Rights is outraged at President Obama’s choice of the right wing Rev. Rick Warren to lead the convocation at his inauguration. This is “change” we can neither believe in nor support. Many of us have been looking forward to this inauguration as we have no other in the past, with great hope that the new administration will restore our Constitution and its place in a nation of laws. We understand, too, that the new president is working to reach across the aisle and make people of different beliefs welcome at his table.

But the choice of Rev. Warren is a callous slap in the face to all progressives and people of conscience who cherish the equality of women and their right to a safe and legal abortion. Roe v. Wade is still the law of the land. It is a constitutional right. Women fought and died for it. A man who so vocally opposes such a hard won and important a constitutional right has no place at this inauguration.

The choice of Rev. Warren is a slap in the face to all progressives and people of conscience who cherish the equality of men and women in the LGBT community. His vocal support for the shameful California Proposition 8 pushes from the table those who have fought long and hard to be able to love and be loved without the interference of hate mongers. A man like Rick Warren who envisions a society where some classes of people are entitled to fundamental rights while others are not based solely on whom and how they love has no place at this inauguration.

We understand that there will be compromises and decisions we won’t agree with in the coming years, and we will be right there challenging them. But to begin it all in this way, is a terrible signal to send to the people who worked day and night to elect President Obama. He should withdraw his invitation. At the very least, he should ask someone else to officiate as well, someone with decency and eloquence who can balance the presence of Rev. Warren. If the president is at a loss for ideas, allow us to suggest two women who could ably fit the bill: Bishop Katherine Jeffords Schori, the presiding head of the Episcopal church who supports the ordination of gay ministers, and Susana Heschel, a feminist theologian and daughter of Abraham Joshua Heschel, the Jewish leader who worked hand in hand with Martin Luther King.

Let’s not start off on the wrong foot and hobble progress before we’ve even begun.

The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights movements in the South, CCR is a non-profit legal and educational organization committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change.

Eloise is a little girl — a force of nature, really — who lives at The Plaza Hotel in New York in a long ago time when pedophiles didn’t yet exist and bumptious children could wander freely through the metropolis. This classic children’s story left me with a lifetime disappointment that suburban homes don’t come with Room Service.

So.

At Thursday's debate, Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren defended their Medicare for All plan. They faced criticism from several rivals, including Senator Amy Klobuchar, who described it as a "bad idea," and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who claimed the bill shows Sanders and Warren do not "trust the American people."

At the third presidential primary debate in Houston, Texas, senator and 2020 candidate Elizabeth Warren called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Warren also spoke about her stance on U.S. trade policy and how "our trade policy in America has been broken for decades."

After being questioned about the crisis in Venezuela, Senator Bernie Sanders defended his vision of democratic socialism. "I agree with what goes on in Canada and in Scandinavia: guaranteeing healthcare to all people as a human right. I believe that the United States should not be the only major country on Earth not to provide paid family and medical le […]

Debate moderator Jorge Ramos of Univision grilled former Vice President Joe Biden over the Obama administration's deportation record. Biden refused to answer whether he did anything to prevent Obama from deporting a record 3 million people.

A U.S. House of Representatives panel on Friday demanded internal emails, detailed financial information and other company records from top executives of Amazon.com Inc., Facebook Inc, Apple Inc, and Alphabet Inc's Google, widening the antitrust probe of Big Tech.

U.S. Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris on Friday asked a government watchdog to look into the Trump administration's decision to launch an antitrust probe into four automakers cooperating with California on tighter greenhouse gas emissions limits that Trump is trying to eliminate.

A lawyer for former FBI official Andrew McCabe pressed U.S. prosecutors on Friday to drop their politically sensitive case against him, citing reports that suggest they may be having trouble securing criminal charges.

Media

from Howl

I'm with you in Rockland
where we wake up electrified out of the coma
by our own souls' airplanes roaring over the
roof they've come to drop angelic bombs the
hospital illuminates itself imaginary walls collapse
O skinny legions run outside O starry
spangled shock of mercy the eternal war is
here O victory forget your underwear we're free
I'm with you in Rockland
in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-
journey on the highway across America in tears
to the door of my cottage in the Western night

October 7 1955

"a remarkable collection of angelson one stage reading their poetry"
"I think Allen Ginsberg standing up there reading - putting himself on the line - was one of the two bravest things I've ever seen. Remember, it was '55. People had crew cuts, and they looked at you like you were misplaced cannon fodder. The country was being run by Luce publications. It was a dangerous, cold, ugly time, and it was scary. . .
In all our memories no one had been so outspoken in poetry before. We had gone beyond a point of no return. None of us wanted to go back to the grey, chill, militaristic silence, to the intellectual void - to the land without poetry - to the spiritual drabness. We wanted to make it new and we wanted to invent it and the process of it as we went into it. We wanted voice and we wanted vision."
-Michael McClure

Democrats…

Same as goddam fucking forever.
Over and over, in election year after election year, GE and MidTerms both… the Dems start to purr and preen, they stretch luxuriously - at just being TOLD they are going to win [...]
It never fails.
... in February of 2002, looking over the already joyless congressional stragglers willing to be drafted for duty… they barely dreamed, yet, it was even possible (Howard, a different person then, had not arrived to say it could be done)… but one thing was clear, we could not rely on the party to swing it. Could not. You could smell it, they would screw the deal. And I am not talking about Howard and primary issues here. By the end, that was a passing political story. Chuck it on the heap.
[...]
Upshot? The Republicans make it thru. They hold on.